


Kaleidoscope

by GreyWolves



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Artist Clarke Griffin, Clexa, F/F, Lexa Lives, One Shot, Soulmates, That trope where you are colourblind until you meet/see your soulmate, sort of...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyWolves/pseuds/GreyWolves
Summary: Everyone is colourblind until they meet/see their soulmate for the first time. (Sorry but I love this trope.) One-shot.





	Kaleidoscope

 

It happened on the way to her studio. Clarke was absently walking down the street, passing many random people, protectively clutching her sketch-folder under one arm. The artist weaved and stepped around the groups of people, also starting their days, some with coffees in their hands, some with phones or briefcases attached to them. It was a typical morning. Then like a lightning strike, Clarke froze, her fingers tingled, and the world flashed into colour -- bright, beautiful colours. The people and the buildings had changed, switched from their usual, black, white and greys into a new world beyond imagining, a world bursting with electricity and brightness.

 

Clarke stood on the street, struck with the amazingness of the world, the green of the trees and the blue of the sky, she watched everything and everyone.

 

 

 

The studio’s walls morphed into swirls, streaks and splatters of vibrant blues, greens, reds, purples and yellows. The dark image of a tiger, transformed into a glowing blizzard of colours against its calm, stoic face. In one intoxicating moment, Clarke gripped a paint bucket and through its bright contents all over the floor, and watched, joyously, as the thick blue wave travelled across the concrete ground like a mini manipulated ocean. Once all the paint had been used, Clarke collapsed in the middle of the room and laughed almost hysterically at the ceiling -- she'd missed that spot, she'd get to it later, after she restocked her paint supplies.

 

"It's like a cyclone of colours happened in your studio." Raven dropped her laptop bag at the door and stepped cautiously over puddles of purple and yellow to reach her friend.

 

"It's magical," Clarke breathed out, looking around at all her recreations.

 

Raven carefully sat down, next to the overly-happy artist, and still managed to get a smear of green onto her black jeans. "So…you see colours now." Raven rubbed uselessly at the paint on her pants.

 

"Yes," Clarke's voice cracked and her eyes filled with happy tears. "I see them all and..." She wiped her eyes quickly. "Everything is so beautiful."

 

Raven smiled down at her friend. "Wait until you see a rainbow for the first time. Or fireworks!"

 

Clarke laughed. "I can't wait. I can't wait for any of it."

 

There was something sad that lingered heavily in the back of Clarke's mind, behind all the visual wonders that had currently hypnotised her essence, it was the understanding that all of the colourful first that she would be experiencing, she would experience alone. Clarke's soulmate was still an unknown, out there in the vast world, possibly still grey-cursed.

 

The days passed, blurry and colourful, and Clarke kept herself locked in her studio, painting over all her originals, plying them with new colours. She researched places to travel, historical sites, museums, she wanted to go everywhere, and she had so many plans, even if she had to go alone.

 

Raven visited, often, as the concerned best friend. "So, I managed to narrow down the list of suspects, thanks to the invention of GPS."

 

"What do you mean?" Clarke was distracted mixing blue and yellow together, and being wildly fascinated by the result.

 

"I have isolated around three hundred communicators that were within a one-hundred-foot radius when you...you know, started seeing colours. Unfortunately, I can't factor in the people who were in the buildings at the time, or who didn't have their coms on their person at the time or who have encrypted coms--"

 

"Raven," Clarke looked up from her pallet. "Thank you."

 

Raven nodded and handed her the information drive. "Three hundred. So, if someone comes running up to you claiming that you made them see colours, you can check if their name is on here. Just to be safe."

 

It was rare enough, but some people were medically colour-blind, and some horrible individuals used these disadvantages to trick people. Clarke's last romantic partner had convinced her that she was colour-blind because he had claimed that he'd seen colours when he met her and that they were soulmates. He only revealed this supposed fact after she had tried to break up with him, so none of Clarke’s friends had wholly believed him, but sadly, Clarke did trust him, for just a little while.

 

You can only pretend to see colours for so long before you are found out, one way or another.

 

The whole experience had left Clarke jaded about the entire soulmate ideology.

 

 

 

Lexa saw the world in shades and never in colour. She had loved her first girlfriend fiercely and had cursed the soulmate belief when that love wasn’t enough for her world to flash into bright colours like the musicians, writers and artists had promised in their grand songs, fantastical plays and wonders paintings. It was as if the whole world had a piece of something that she was not privy to, could not grasp, no matter how hard she had searched for it.

 

One day, Lexa just gave up and let the world spin around her, singing its love songs without her. It was easy, after that, to let her studies consume her, to become a workaholic. At least these things made sense to Lexa.

 

“Next week is the fundraiser,” Anya said, scrolling through their itinerary on the tablet. “Then the opening of the Northern branch.”

 

“More politics,” Lexa drawled and took a sip of her scolding black coffee.

 

The café was a regular spot for the colleagues to meet and organise the days ahead. It was cosy and clean, and Lexa had grown used to the older area of the city. Anya had been her friends since school, and she was as dedicated as Lexa when it came to advancement in the harsh business world. The morning would drift on lazily around them, and Lexa enjoyed the peace that came with this particular routine. She and Anya had the same type of coffee every day and sat in the same chairs by the café window.

 

“Good morning, Monty!”

 

“Hey! Ice latte?”

 

“You bet!”

 

The lively exchange pulled Lexa out of her head, she looked up and…

 

Colour exploded outward from everywhere.

 

A blonde girl with a kind smile, covered in specks of blue, green and other colours that Lexa had yet to recognise, approached the counter and swiped her card across the reader. A painter, Lexa realised, as she was covered in an abundance of colours, staining her oversized shirt, fingertips, sneakers, face, jeans and even her hair.

 

The painter quickly received her beverage, chatted for a long moment with the barista, turned, smiled briefly at Lexa, and then walked out of the coffee shop and down the street to wherever she had come from.

 

“Lexa, hey, focus! We have a presentation in two hours.”

 

“Blue…” Lexa stared out at the street, towards where the woman had vanished, out of sight.

 

“What?” Anya asked distractedly, tapping away on the tablet.

 

Lexa cleared her throat. “Nothing. I’m ready.”

 

“You better be.”

 

Lexa noticed the strangest things that day. The colour of her co-worker’s tie, the bits of blonde in her best friend’s hair, the colour of her lunch, the colour of the sky at midday was decidedly her favourite. She didn’t tell anyone that her whole existence had miraculously changed, not even Anya. Instead, she pushed all those romantic thoughts down and focused on her work, like she should be doing, after all, she was flying out of the country next weekend for a conference. It didn’t matter who had appeared in her life. Lexa had solid plans and promises that she had made to herself, she couldn’t just change her entire life plan for one person.

 

The next morning, she went back to that café with Anya and silently waited. When the painter didn’t appear again, Lexa shook her head, annoyed at the romantic thoughts that had manifested against her will, and ashamed of her hopeful persistence with the whole soulmate concept. It was foolish. Good things just didn’t happen to people like Lexa -- at least, that is what she had convinced herself of years before.

 

She left to go to work with Anya and refused to think twice about her choices.

 

 

 

"Clarke..."

 

"I know."

 

"This is…"

 

"I know."

 

"Wow! Clarke." Abby very slowly placed the takeout bag down on the ground by the door, careful not to disturb or touch anything.

 

"Yeah. I know." Clarke nodded, looking around at the covered walls, floors and ceiling of her studio, seeing it all through her mother eyes and suddenly understanding its intensity.

 

Abby chuckled, mirthlessly. "At least we know what your favourite colour is."

 

Clarke let out a wet laugh. "Yeah. I guess we do."

 

"So..."

 

Clarke nodded. "Yeah. I know." The artist broke down in her mother’s arms, she sobbed quietly against her, soaking her blue-collar shirt and noticing that it turned a darker blue when it was wet.

 

Abby just held her child close with one hand moving soothingly up and down her back. They stood at the entrance to Clarke studio like that for ages.

 

“What colour was dad’s eyes?” Clarke whispered after a while into her mother’s shoulder, curious and timid.

 

“A soft blue,” Abby swallowed, pushing the words out and keeping her emotions in, she needed to be strong for her daughter, she needed to be a good parent today. “Bright and intense when the sunlight hit. Just like your eyes, Clarke.”

 

Clarke pulled back and looked at her mother, astonished at the revelation. “My eyes are blue?”

 

“Yes,” Abby smiled. “You have your father's eyes.”

 

 

 

The cafe was practically empty. Lexa had been so focused on the weekly reports that she had missed when breakfast rushed had faded away.

 

"Hi...is anyone sitting here?" It was the painter, Lexa knew from her voice, she felt it when she walked into the café, she sensed her when she walked up the street. There was a pull that only grew stronger the longer she chose to ignore it. "I don't mean to be forward. It's just...your eyes are the most intense type of green that I have ever seen."

 

Lexa looked up from her work tablet and inhaled deeply. "I wouldn't know."

 

Clarke flinched. "Right. No. I'm sorry. That was a dumb thing to say.”

 

"Lexa,” she offered her hand, feeling suddenly empathic.

 

"Lexa. A beautiful name.” Clarke smiled, shook her hand briefly and then pointed to the empty chair on the other side of the tiny table. “Can I sit here?"

 

"I don't- I'm- Okay...um...sure." Lexa stuttered, which she hated herself for immediately.

 

Clarke ignored the awkwardness and happily sat opposite the dark-haired businesswoman. "So, where's your friend? You two are usually here every day."

 

"A new branch opened on the north side. Anya said it wasn't practical to travel twenty minutes in the wrong direction for coffee."

 

Clarke tilted her head quizzically. "But you still do?"

 

Lexa hesitated, realising her mistake. "It's delicious coffee."

 

"It's okay coffee."

 

"You're here almost every day, so it can't be that bad.”

 

"My studio is ten seconds that way," Clarke jerked her thumb behind her, towards her studio. "…and you've noticed that I'm here most mornings."

 

"It was nice to meet you, Clarke." There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere, Lexa stood, grabbed her tablet off the table and abruptly left.

 

Clarke sat back in the uncomfortable, wooden chair and analysed the strange encounter. Eventually, she noticed the full cup of coffee that Lexa had left behind. “Delicious coffee huh?”

 

 

 

Lexa was fury and passion manifested, she was a storm at her office, and then she was a white-hot rage at the gym, aggressively putting her fight partner down on the matted floor, again and again, finally she was adrift at her the local pub, drowning in expensive liquids. The next morning, she went to a different coffee place and her whole day felt hollow and cold, colours seemed boring and dull.

 

Finding Clarke’s studio was easy. There was a massive, fresh mural of a lush, green forest on the outside wall. The image made Lexa uneasy. There was this fear in the back of Lexa’s mind, a tiny voice that told her to beware, that this direction of travel will bring on perilous changes. Despite these fear, Lexa couldn’t live in limbo forever, she needed to force her way through the uncertainty, to understand whatever came next, and so, she knocked on the large, metal, loft door and waited.

 

After seconds or maybe minutes, the door was pushed open, slid to the side to reveal the dishevel artist.

 

“Lexa. Why are you here?” Clarke sounded nervous as she purposefully blocked Lexa’s view of her studio with her body.

 

“I think we should talk.”

 

Clarke looked surprised but still nodded along. “Okay. How about coffee? Tomorrow?”

 

“How about right now.” Lexa was firm with her counter option, she didn’t want to postpone this any longer, she didn’t want to be controlled by her feelings any longer.

 

“I don’t know if…” Clarke sighed, bit her lip and looked away. “Okay. Come in.” She stepped to the side and let Lexa walk into the studio.

 

Lexa was not prepared, not for the landscape, the forests, the earth, the greens, the portrait of herself in dark grey with only her eyes in colour, a deep green, like much of the rest of the room. “Clarke,” Lexa let a single tear escape with her breath. It was so much. She stood in the middle of the room and slowly turned, allowing the pictures to swirl around her, she looked at every piece and absorbed them, acknowledge them, and understood them completely.

 

“I don’t expect anything from you.” Clarke wiped the sweat from her hands onto the sleeves of her hoodie. “Maybe we could talk, go for coffee, it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

 

Lexa nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “Yes. I would like that.”

 

Clarke and Lexa had been on a collision course for their entire lives, and now they had to navigate the beautiful aftermath. They smiled at each other, softly, shyly, nervously, they stood apart but felt inexplicitly drawn together, in a spectacular world of endless colour.


End file.
